


Prince of Fire and Glass

by svedka9



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: First Time, M/M, POV First Person, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:53:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24165421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/svedka9/pseuds/svedka9
Summary: The army is only a day's march from Fhirdiad, but Dimitri still goes wandering at night. Dedue finds a solution, but it's not what he expected...
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Dedue Molinaro
Comments: 6
Kudos: 58





	Prince of Fire and Glass

I woke in the middle of the night to find His Highness had gone wandering again. His wolf pelt and cape were gone, and the bedroll was packed up and put aside—not neatly, but enough to show he hadn't been magicked away by enemy operatives. It was safe to assume he'd left under his own power. Without me. Again.

I thought sharing his tent would deter him, or at least put me close enough to hear him getting up to leave, but clearly my skills as both a disciplinarian and a bodyguard were lacking. I was chagrined, I was concerned, but mostly I was annoyed. We had talked about this. 

I got up immediately to go find him. I stopped to put on boots, but didn't bother with armor. Our perimeter was secure and sightlines were abundant, so there was likely no danger. I was more concerned about him than outside forces. It had only been a few weeks since his fugue had broken, and now that we had crossed the border into Faerghus, there was always the chance it could return. Especially with what our scouts had reported about Fhirdiad, and the "modifications" the usurper, Cornelia, had made to it. I was not bothered by His Highness's dark moods like the others, but it was clear now that _he_ was, so it was my duty to keep him rational. 

The capital was visible in the distance over a steep ridge to the west, so I started my search there. I had to cross a strip of forest to get to it. The very top of the ridge was dotted with some of our sentries, but just below that, a few feet from the summit, I could make out a leafless tree and a seated figure in fur, lit with a pale silver glow. I made my steps heavy so he would hear them at a distance and not be alarmed, but he didn't turn and look until I was nearly there, a sword stroke from his neck. He could tell it was me, perhaps, and he was at least wearing his armor and had brought weapons to polish idly in the moonlight. But he could have been wrong, and such careless certainty was inexcusable. 

Still, the lecture died in my throat when I saw his face. One pale, soulful eye, blue as lightning; the other stolen away. In moments like this, I could understand why Gustave had abandoned his life and title for a recriminating, monastic existence—even though he'd been far away, even though he could have never known what was happening in Duscur, he had failed to protect his king, as I had failed to protect mine. Now the scars of my absence marked Dimitri's body for all time. He would never be whole again. 

The light was coming from a small luminescent stone that sat in his hand. The eye warmed in its gleam as he smiled at me. "Dedue! Hello." 

I dispelled all my useless guilt feelings with a grunt. "You should have woken me." 

"I was going to," he said. "I even walked over to you, but you seemed deeply asleep. Opportunity for that is so rare on the march; I thought I should just leave you be." 

"You thought wrong, Your Highness." 

He chuckled and turned his attention back to the stone. Or perhaps it was glasswork. It was lit from within, with a matte surface and a dull gray sheen. 

"What is that?" I asked him. 

"Mercedes gave it to me." He held it up for me to inspect. "It's supposed to be soothing. She said I could use it to focus and push away unwanted thoughts." 

"Does it work?" 

"Not really." He tipped his chin up to indicate the summit, and what lay beyond it. "But it's better than looking at that." 

I climbed past him to see it. The ridge overlooked a long, barren valley that ended at the city walls. Our sentries on the ridge had already descended down its western face, perhaps to avoid being seen themselves. 

I had no love for Fhirdiad, and its iron gates and bare stone frontages were never pleasant to look at—stark, functional, and forbidding. Still, the unearthly black towers now rising out of the city center chilled the blood. We'd heard the reports, but nothing prepared me for the sight of them: two huge columns that scraped the sky, smooth as polished stone, crackling with the poisonous glow of dark magic. They made the whole city look menacing, as if the very streets and buildings might rise up to destroy us when we entered it. That woman had profaned the Holy Capital into something truly monstrous. 

Dimitri came up behind me and looked out over the valley. The soft glow of the stone on his face was replaced with arcing stripes of violet in the distance. "It looks so evil, it's hard to imagine people still living there," he said. "But they do, and they're _my_ people. I abandoned them to this fate." 

I knew he did not want my assurances that he was not at fault, so I kept them to myself. All I said was: "We will free them." 

"Free them?" He laughed bitterly. "Is it so freeing, to depose a conqueror only to replace her with a head-sick king?" 

"You care about them," I said. "She doesn't. That is enough." 

"A moon ago, I did not." 

"You did. You just couldn't see the way forward." 

He growled and turned away from the city, stalked back down the ridge to the tree and dropped into a crouch at the base of it. He looked at the stone in his hand for a moment, then pitched it to the side. 

"Your Highness, are you well?" 

"Yes." He sighed and let his head fall back against the tree trunk. "The dead are quiet for now, but I can't help but imagine what they would say if they saw this. My father would spit venom at me for letting his capital be overtaken by blasphemous sorceries. But he and all the rest would also curse me for daring to come here, for turning my back on Enbarr." 

"What you hear is not your father." 

"I know," he said. "And nothing assuages their fury. There is no right answer; everything I do is worthy of their contempt. I can't move forward like that. That's why I have to learn to ignore them." 

I glanced at Mercedes's stone, so easily discarded. "Is there nothing that can help you?" 

He held his hand out to me, palm up, as if expecting something to be placed in it. "Give me your hand," he said, when I didn't understand. 

I knelt beside him and gave it to him without question, of course, though I had my doubts. 

He closed his other hand over it and bent his head as if in prayer. I felt strangely warm. " _This_ helps me. Connection with the living. You, the professor, all my companions and friends…" 

I opened my mouth to correct him—he and I could not be friends, not yet—but it was not what he needed to hear, and he wouldn't like it. 

"I need you so much, Dedue." His voice was ragged, overcome. "Without you… I…" 

I joined my other hand with his and squeezed his fingers. He sighed gratefully and brought his lips to my knuckles. I understood that he was meaning to be reverent, but my whole arm trembled with fiery nerve, and it took all of my willpower not to jerk away. This was bringing youthful fantasies to the surface of my skin that were best left buried. 

"Your Highness, please," I said. "This is unbecoming. I am your servant." 

"You are _not_." He held his grip on my wrist. I had known him for years, yet his slender limbs made it easy to forget his overwhelming strength. "Let people say what they like. I am _king_. If it pleases me to kiss the hands of my retainers, I will do it." 

His retainers. Yes. 

But my mind was already starting to go blank, its focus narrowing on the ends of his hair, his ripe, open mouth, the moisture from his lips drying on my hand. I made a poor vassal like this. I had to collect myself. 

"Have I made you uncomfortable?" he asked. 

"No." Still, I dared not look at his face. "Please excuse me. I'm going to go speak with the sentries." 

"Why are you so nervous?" 

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to turn away, but he caught me, a gloved hand on the corner of my jaw. I'd seen that hand crush a man's skull to powder, but now it was guiding me forward, inexorably, until our lips brushed and I gasped. He must have read something of the truth in my face. He took the invitation and captured my mouth, eager and firm, drinking deep. 

I had imagined a moment like this so many times when we were boys, but now that it was real, I was at a loss. But he seemed to have some idea of what he was doing—or at least what he wanted—and positioned my hands on his body while he leaned his weight into me. He tasted of blood and salted meat, of long marches and fierce battles. I was filled with desire and dread. The part of me that protested this debasement of my liege lord was losing ground fast. 

He broke his mouth from mine and caught his breath against my cheek. If I was ever going to stop this folly, it had to be now. 

"Your Highness, you can't do this," I said. 

He put a hand on my shoulder and pushed himself back. "You don't want to?" His eye was wide with worry and pain. "Was I wrong?" 

He was so beautiful, and so hurt. Hurt that I caused, again, with my obsession for propriety at the cost of his feelings. And I realized that… I couldn't do it anymore. It was over. I had lost. 

I sighed. "That's… not what I said." 

"Ah…" He slid his hand up from my shoulder to cup my head, ran his thumb over my temple. His smile was fond. "I see. You're just being you." 

He came forward to kiss me again, gently this time, nursing his lips against the lines of my mouth like he was trying to draw something out of me. I gave him my tongue and he accepted with a groan, sucked it into his mouth as we melted together. I lay back to take more of his weight; he fell over me, pressing me into the ground with his body, and the planes of his armor dug into my flesh. 

How far did he intend to take this? I supposed that was for me to find out—I surrendered completely to his will. 

Well, not completely. His fingers tugged at the collar of my doublet to pull it open, and I grabbed his hands to stop him. He'd tear it for certain, and I didn't want to have to explain that to anyone we passed on the way back to camp. Instead I unbuttoned it myself, breathing hard, while he shucked off his gloves and gauntlets. My skin was hot where his naked hands met it, and I grunted approval as he ran them over me, sucking on my neck, molding out my body in his bone-breaking grip. 

Had he always longed for me as I longed for him? Since he first brought me to his castle, and we shared a bed as children? He slept poorly even back then, and I used to live for those moments when he would finally doze off and I could drink my fill of his sleeping face. Perhaps he spent some sleepless nights beholding me, as well. Or perhaps this was simply a passing distraction, a reprieve from his madness… or worse, an expression of it. 

He scraped a nipple with his thumbnail and brought me crashing back to earth. "What's on your mind?" 

"Ngh…" It left a delicious sting that made my cock jump. "Nothing… Your Highness." 

"Come on, Dedue." He grinned and swept his tongue over my lower lip. "If you want me, be here with me." 

I did want him. Very much. I framed his face in my hands and pulled him down to me. I craved another of his bruising kisses. 

Still, there was the matter of our exposure. The forest down below would protect us from being visible from camp, but anyone who crossed it would clearly see us. Or the sentries could come back over the ridge instead of going around. He may not have been concerned for his reputation, but _I_ was, and it was my job to attend to matters he was eager to look past. 

"Maybe we should go back to the tent," I said. 

"No," he said, running a spit-slick thumb in circles over the nipple he'd abused. "You'll talk me out of this before we get there." 

Probably true. 

Instead he shrugged off his pelt and arranged it under my neck and shoulders. It smelled like him—leather and sweat and dried sage. He retrieved the glowing stone from where he'd left it and set it beside me, then unfastened his cape and pulled it over us. The silver-white glow banished all shadows from his face as he bent over me, fine features curled into an impish grin. 

"This is not going to fool _anyone_ ," I said. 

He traced out the seam of my lips with a finger before sliding it inside. "Shh." 

He threw his leg over me and straddled my waist. The hand that wasn't in my mouth roamed over my stomach and sides, grabbing handfuls of muscle, appraising the shape of me. He bent his head down near my ear; his hair brushed my cheek and made me shudder. 

"I like your body," he said. "I'm a little jealous—I could train all day and never have bulk like this." 

He was strong enough to pick me up and throw me like a hatchet, but I was enjoying sucking on his fingertips too much to say anything. 

While his hands were occupied, I worked to uncouple all the little bits of armor that covered him. The scalloped plate was agile and lightweight and clung to every line of his body, but it was annoying to remove. Pieces flew out from under the cape as quickly as I could get them off, until finally it was only the undershirt that separated me from his bare skin. He helped me peel it off and over his head, and as his body was revealed, the scent of him hit me like a wave. It made my mouth water. 

I sat up to meet him and held him tight to me, feeling out his shape, the raised outlines of scars on his back, the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed against me. He grabbed my head and crushed our mouths together, pushed his tongue between my teeth, and it felt as if my soul had exited my body, like my time on earth was complete, for this was all I'd ever wanted. 

It seemed he wanted more from me, however. He moved his legs so he was kneeling beside me rather than over me, then ran the flat of his palm down my stomach and over the front of my trousers. He moaned when he felt how aroused I was, which only made my pulse run harder, and he wasted no time disengaging my belt and pulling my cock free of its confines. It sprang up to rest on my stomach, head fully revealed, plump with blood. 

He picked it up in his hand, with a firm thumb along the underside, and slid the foreskin up and over the tip and back again. I thought I was going to faint. I'd handled myself before, but with him it was different—not functional, but intimate, brain-razing, years of shameful fantasies brought to life. 

He tucked his other arm under my neck and rested his cheek on my shoulder. His breathing was ragged again, and if not for the cape trapping all the heat in with us, I might have seen it misting in the night air. He pumped my cock with long, deep strokes in a tight fist, too slow to make me boil over, but enough to break any bodily self-control and leave me bucking helplessly into his hand. When beads of white sap formed at the head, he licked his lips. 

"Look at that," he purred. 

I didn't understand what he was getting at, even as he unwrapped himself from me and leaned over it. He held it up straight like a fortress turret, pointed at the sky, and let spit fall out of his mouth to cover the head. When his tongue first pressed against the gland, I nearly jumped out of my skin. What was happening to me? I was meant to be steady. I was the immovable rock on which his ambitions were lashed. 

But before him, I was merely flesh, and when he swallowed me down to the root I cried out. He hummed with delight at my outburst, and I felt it all up the length of me, as if it came from my own soul. 

_Gods of Duscur's sea and sky, this Faerghus boy has broken me._

He shifted so his one eye could see my face, and then the wet cavern of his mouth worked on me in earnest, sliding my cock in and out, bathing it with a muscular tongue, letting it scrape against his palate. It drove me wild. He kept at me until I was whimpering, tangling my hands in his hair, reduced to a single frayed nerve. He pulled away for a moment to catch his breath, then dragged the flat of his tongue along the outside all the way down to the bollocks and back up. He looked so wanton, panting hard, eye misted and half closed, devouring my cock with more pleasure than he ever had for a meal. 

It wasn't right. He was the prince. I should've been servicing him. 

"Wait," I said. 

He made a little moue of disappointment, then touched his tongue to the froth of seed that had gathered at the tip. He brought it into his mouth, leaving a spidersilk thread trailing between us. If that was supposed to distract me, it was nearly effective. 

_How do you even know how to do that?_ I almost asked, but didn't. Instead, I said: "Get undressed." 

He laughed. "Trying to hold out, are you?" 

"I didn't say that." 

He threw off the cape and stood up; the cool spring air washed over me and made my hair stand on end. He stepped away to unbuckle the rest of his armor. It fell away from him in pieces, clattering to the dirt like dross, until finally his breeches joined them and he stood before me fully unclothed. 

I'd seen his naked body before, several times, but not since we were teenagers, and not like this—flushed and ripe and aroused. He was already filling out well since the month before, when forgetting how to take care of himself had left him wraithlike and starved. He'd put on some new muscle in the intervening years, too, whatever he said… and new scars beyond the missing eye. But above all that, he was still the handsome prince of Faerghus, with fine flaxen hair, long legs, and a narrow waist. Pretty as glass; deadly when broken. 

Now, too, there was the matter of his erection, eager and proud, perfectly formed. It made my throat ache just to behold it. I beckoned him over to me so I could hold it in my hand; it was hot and hard and he made a deep, enticing sound when I closed my fist around it. The camp was forgotten; the sentries on the other side of the ridge were forgotten; the forest, the valley, the malign sorcery cloaking the city all fell away until there was nothing left but him and me and the sound of his voice. 

I had no experience, but I tried to think of what he had done, and what I might have liked for him to do if I'd let him continue. I pressed my face into the blond thatch around his cock and breathed in; the musk was sharp and intoxicating. I tested the weight of his testicles on my tongue and sucked one into my mouth until he cried out in delight. He cradled my head in his hands and dragged his nails along my scalp. Even in the cold, his white skin was blotched red and sweating. 

I licked my way up the shaft and closed my lips around the head. It tasted of seawater and sweat. He put a hand on my shoulder to brace himself. 

Hot breath steamed from his mouth in a rasp: "Hold onto me." 

I put my hands on his thighs and was pleased to find they were shaking, muscle hard as rock from years without royal comforts now melting at my touch. I grasped him by the hips and took his cock as deep as it would go, until his hair tickled my nose, and was rewarded with a heart-twisting whine. 

I laved him dutifully, lovingly, moving him in and out of my mouth by my grip on his body. He picked up one of my hands and slid it around to grab him by the backside. I was hesitant, but after a moment I dug my fingers in and squeezed; his breath hitched and his head rolled back. 

"Ah! Dedue…" 

He let me carry on for a few more strokes before placing a hand on my head to stop me. His mouth hung open, his breathing labored. He plucked my hands off him and went to gather his cape off the ground, then spread it out under the tree. 

"Sit there," he said, pointing. 

I complied and watched him walk over to where he'd left his weapons. His slender, sweat-slick limbs glistened in the light of the moon, the light of the stone. I felt a sudden surge of embarrassment—he was fully nude outside of his eye-patch, but I was still mostly clothed, just with my doublet open and my cock out. I hadn't even taken my boots off. It seemed disrespectful to leave him more exposed than I was. 

Before I could do anything about it, though, he'd already rummaged around in his things and popped back up with a small jar of mineral oil. He'd probably brought it to clean his sword. He walked it over to where I was sitting and set it down on the ground, then knelt over me and pressed my head back against the tree, pinning me with his mouth. My hands fell on his waist and pulled him in. I could feel his cock nudging against mine. 

When he took his mouth away, I ducked forward and closed my lips on his neck, tasting the saline sweat that pooled in the lines of his throat. He rewarded me with a grunt and began to grind on my hips with purpose, banishing all thought from my head. He picked up the jar and poured a measure of oil into his hand, then reached between us to grasp us both together. It felt hot and wet, sinfully indulgent. He leaned his forehead into mine and breathed into my mouth; I bit down on his lip until he groaned. 

He found one of my hands and moved it between us to take over his work, then filled his palm with oil again and reached behind his back. I realized immediately what he meant to do, and it was too much. 

"Ugh," I grunted out. "Your Highness—don't." 

I couldn't see what he was doing, but he stretched back and lifted his hips, and I could imagine his oil-drenched fingers disappearing inside his body. His eye fell closed and the muscles of his shoulder flexed under his skin. 

"If you don't tell me you want to, I won't do it," he said. "But I think you do. I think you want this as badly as I do." 

Even in my idle fantasies, I had never let it get this far. "There'll be no coming back from this," I said. 

"There's no coming back from anything I've done." He leaned forward and flicked his tongue over my lips. "How nice for it to be something pleasant." 

He pulled himself into more of an upright kneel so he didn't need the other hand for balance, then ran his palm up my chest and over my collarbone to grasp my neck. He tipped my chin up with his thumb. 

"Well?" 

I could see now that I would never defeat him. He knew me to my core; he knew me better than I knew myself. There was no decorum here, just his hot skin and my aching body. The one who taught me to see beyond the limits of my imagination and reach for greater things was he. Why not once more? 

"Yes," I said. 

He sighed indecently and withdrew his fingers, then used them to pull my cock between his legs. 

"Please, Your Majesty." 

The first kiss of my cockhead against his body nearly knocked the breath out of me, but when he sank down around me I clenched my teeth and growled, deep and long. I'd never made a sound like that before. 

He purred at me in response. "Ah, it's thick…" 

He moved my hands to his hips and grabbed my shoulders for leverage. He was only halfway down before he rose up again and eased back, deeper this time. I was going out of my mind. It was so tight inside him I couldn't breathe, as if his hidden strength was bound up inside and crushing me through a wet, muscular wall. But the texture was soft, a hot velvet glove. I hadn't expected that. 

I thought he might lose his erection when I entered him, but it stood up prouder than ever, weeping seed from the tip. He loved it. I ran a thumb over the head and he moaned, so loud my heart skipped, and seated my cock fully inside himself. We stayed like that for a moment, still but for my thundering pulse and his quivering body, frozen in anticipation. He watched me through one sultry eye, mouth open, panting, one hand around my neck and the other fisted on the collar of my doublet. 

The people of Faerghus, the ones waiting for us in the capital and across the historic holdings of House Blaiddyd, hated the sons and daughters of Duscur with no compassion and no quarter. Now here was their prince, drunk with pleasure on my filthy brown cock. I imagined him taking back power only to have me fuck him on the throne, in full view of an aghast, racist court. The idea of it was at once shameful, horrifying, arousing. 

But this was no time for idle thoughts. He was here, now, surrounding me, filling up the world outside. 

I drew a breath. Then he started to move. 

He went slowly at first, still stretching for my girth, then began to ride me harder, clenching and releasing my cockhead like a fist. He milked the life out of me with aggressive, powerful thrusts. For several strokes I was helpless beneath him, squirming, reacting, barely holding on, until finally I found my own course and could rise up to meet him where he fell. I grabbed fistfuls of his firm, round ass and dragged him down to me, making him scream. I wouldn't last long like this, but I knew I wanted him to come while I was inside him. I couldn't imagine wanting anything else. 

He threw his arms around me and fastened our mouths together, his jaws surging forward with every pump of my cock. I fit my hand under the straps of his eyepatch and pulled it off over his head, moved my lips so I could run my tongue over the scar. He shuddered. 

All at once he grabbed my collar in both hands and dragged his weight backward, landing hard on the ground with me on top of him. He brought my ear down to his lips and bit down on the shell. "Fuck me," he said. 

I did. I pounded my cock into him like it was the beating of my own heart, like if I stopped I'd surely fall dead. He twined his limbs around me, hands in my hair, powerful thighs gripping my waist as I drove forward and back. With the least mental lapse, he could have broken all my bones, but I welcomed it. I could conceive no better end. 

Soon his cries got sharper, and he reached a hand between us to finish himself off, but I caught his wrist and pinned it to the ground. He could have thrown me off easily, but he seemed to crave my dominance, like it was all he'd wanted since this began. 

Deep in his throes, his voice formed itself into words: _more, harder, yes_

In a moment of weakness, I groaned out his name. 

All too quickly it was over. He came like the shot of an arrow, all at once, leaving only a quivering bowstring. Seeing his face twisted in ecstasy, the spray of come on his belly, the way his hips bucked under me, I was nearing the end myself. I thought I should pull back, but his legs held me in place until a few pumps more and I finished inside him. I was crushed by his strength, utterly overcome. 

We collapsed together, panting like dogs. I held him close and buried my face in his shoulder while he crooned assurances into my hair. When I finally disengaged from his body, it was like pulling myself out of a vise; I roared in triumph and defeat. 

We lay like that for a while, watching each other's faces, the rise and fall of our chests. Eventually he got up and retrieved his eyepatch from where I'd flung it and retied it over his face. He moved a like a new foal, bloodless and unsteady on his legs, and I felt a little proud. He was still flushed, with rumpled hair and my come running down his thigh, and I could think of no more splendid vision. 

He stepped over to his gear to find something to clean himself up with, while I refastened my clothes and climbed up the ridge. Fhirdiad was still there, a threat on the horizon as ever, and the sentries were at vantage points far off but still within shouting distance. Even so, they'd made no move toward us, so perhaps they heard nothing. It would be at least until daylight until we found out for sure. 

I went back to the tree and gathered up his cape, then sat on the ground where it had lain. He wiped himself off with a rag before coming to collect it. It was wet in places and smelled of sex, but he still wrapped it around himself, not bothering to put on his armor or underclothes. He pulled the wolf pelt over his shoulders to crown it. He looked like a lewd war nymph, marked by violence, covered in scars old and new and missing a right eye. 

"You're still beautiful," I said. 

He hummed thoughtfully and didn't meet my eyes, but I think he was pleased. 

He sat down beside me and laid his head on my shoulder. I reached my arm around him and pulled him in close. It was nice, to be together like this in a moment of calm. 

Still, I had questions. "You'll forgive me, Your Highness…" I cleared my throat, unsure how to proceed. "You, uh… you moved very confidently just now. Have you done this before?" 

"Oh…" He smiled languidly and stared off somewhere I couldn't see. "Yes. Before we left for the academy, when I couldn't sleep, sometimes I would go down to the stables and take my horse out for a ride. The groom who worked the night shift was about our age, and he liked me, and… well, princes and stable boys are a trope, but it was a way to get out of my own head for a while." He sighed. "I suppose he's dead now." 

"When we retake Fhirdiad, will you look for him?" 

"To find out if he's still alive, maybe. But nothing more than that. The world's changed; I've changed. I don't think I could have sex that was empty or meaningless anymore." 

I felt as though a desert flower had bloomed inside my chest. 

"Well," I said, "Since you seem to be incapable of ending your midnight wandering, and I can't trust you to wake me like I asked… I'll be forced to share your bed." I put on a stern face. "I hope you're prepared." 

"Mm, how cruel." He laced the fingers of one hand through mine and nuzzled into my shoulder. "Whatever shall I do…" 

The forest below us was still, and we were far enough from dawn that no birds sang. Even the wind was quiet, lapping gently at my cooling skin. By the light of the moon and the small gray stone, perhaps Dimitri was finally able to set aside his burdens for a moment… for his head was heavy, his hand was limp, and I found that he'd fallen asleep.


End file.
